


Run Away To Happiness

by fringeperson



Category: Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote this and I know better now, I was very Australian in my poetry choices here, Identity Issues, Old Fic, Running Away, but I'm not going to deny its existance just because it's old and bad, changing who you are is very dramatic when there's magic involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27443257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: The Baron was reading alone in the Bureau and his heart ached for so many reasons...~Originally posted in '07.
Relationships: Baron Humbert von Gikkingen/Yoshioka Haru
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I warn you again, this is Very Old Writing - and I haven't changed anything except a couple of typos.

"If you need ever us, you will always know where to find us again," he had said. He had promised her that they would all be there if they needed her. He hadn't kept his promise though; his heart couldn't take it. A week had gone by, and the only news they had was Muta saying that she seemed perfectly happy and content, without a trouble in the world.

He had been reading, a cup of tea cooling beside him, a book of classic verse by one Mister "Banjo" Patterson and he found himself yearning for the life the poet so vividly described. Men took to the road, all their possessions in the world upon their backs in a pack, more commonly called a swag or Matilda. These men worked only as it suited them to work, travelled as they pleased, and valued a good cup of tea - though they drank it from an empty tin more often than a teacup, and boiled the water in a bucket they called Billy.

Over a month, without even realising he was doing it, the Baron slowly packed up those things he could not and would not leave behind into a swag. The Matilda Waltzer's Union described it in detail – an outdated document the instant it was written, though an interesting piece of colonial history nevertheless.

Now he was walking, his swag on his shoulder, his cane in his gloved hand and his hat between his furred ears. He had felt in a daze at first, and he still wasn't sure where he was going or why, but that was all right – a swaggie, as he understood, didn't have to worry about things like that.

He had walked out of the Bureau with his now meagre belongings after Toto and Muta had both gone to sleep. He'd left them a note on his desk, saying that he was gone. _Don't look for me,_ it said, _I don't want to be found. Be good chaps, keep the Bureau going, and try not to fight so often. H._

The H was for Humbert, perhaps everyone knew him better as _Baron_ , but his name was Humbert, and it always had been. There were times he had wondered if it were such a fine name though, even if the artisan had given it to him in love. Whatever the answer may have been, the Baron had never avoided his name, everyone seemed to think his title suited him better as a name though…

He walked. He left the refuge, the city, and the people he knew and cared for; all were behind him. He kept walking. Mountains gave way to plains, and eventually he came to the sea. The sea… it looked wonderful. While he was resting in the shadows, a man took his grandson upon his knee, and the Baron heard the silver-haired man tell the child that the sea had no memory.

"All the sadness, the lost hopes and dreams, the sea takes those away. When you're out there, nothing but the future matters – where you're going, not where you've come from. There was a time when even tomorrow didn't matter upon the sea, simply surviving the storms and the waves. There are few places left quite like the sea," said the old man, and the Baron could see the spark of a happy youth spent on the ocean hidden within the wrinkled gentleman.

"The sea," he said to himself, considering the port before him, all the docked vessels and their destinations. One ship was a restored antique of a craft, a tall ship with miles of rigging and great white sails. It was visiting from Australia, an historical craft, teaching about the lives of the explorers as it travelled the world, and it was leaving the next day for its home port. He slipped aboard at midnight.


	2. Chapter 2

"An' just _what_ do you think you're doing on _my_ ship?" a slightly feminine voice asked from just above the Baron.

Turning, he saw that it was a cat, a grey tabby, sitting on top of one of the piles of coiled rope. Her eyes were bright in the moonlight and he could see her tail twitching a little, despite the deep shadows that blanketed the ship.

" _I_ am the ship's cat, we don't need a second, though why _any_ one would want to go through a week of quarantine every time we hit the home port, I _don't_ know," she continued, still looking down upon him regally. "Hang about," she said quietly, as if to herself, which it was. Lightly, the feline jumped down from the line stacks and circled the Baron.

"You're no cat," she said, twining about him, her whole stance low to the deck, ready to pounce upon him. At last, she seemed to reach a decision, and sat down in front of him, head tilted slightly as she considered him.

"Alright, you can come, but you'll be sitting in quarantine for a week too – the people will want to make sure that you're not carrying some foreign woodworm or fungi inside you." It had taken only one sniff for her to know him as wood.

"I assure you madam, the only thing growing inside me is a black hole," the Baron answered, grateful that she was willing to tolerate him aboard ship.

"Oh? You're kitten leave you?" she asked, stretching herself lazily, though her glowing eyes remained fixed upon him.

"Not exactly…" he said, his shoulders slumping as the memories returned. They were always there, and he dreamed about them when he slept, but the sadness had been kept at bay as he tried to stay hidden through the day.

"You don't get to be ship's cat for being stupid, Bucko," she said, shoving her face right beneath his, something only cats could really get away with. "Come on, talk."

"I had a comfortable home, friends, and there was a girl, a human girl."

"Her mother wouldn't let her keep you?"

"Not exactly…" He told her his story, about Toto, Muta, the Bureau, Miss Haru, and their adventure in the Cat Kingdom. He told her about his farewell to Haru and all the time that he had spent alone thinking about her. He told her how he had become a "swaggie" without his even realising it, and how he came to be aboard her ship. "But I suppose the life I'm looking for doesn't exist any more," he finished.

"Course it does," the cat said. There was no sympathy in her voice, she wasn't saying it to make him feel better; the tabby was stating a fact. "Oh, I don't pretend that there aren't some impressive cities, but the outback and the bush are still there, and life hasn't changed all that much just coz they've got phones and TVs now. Sheep still need shearing, cattle still need shifting, and the rain still needs finding. There are still brumbies in the Snowy Mountains, and men still walk the desert roads because they are happiest there, but I reckon you're a mite too clean and tidy to be a proper swaggie," she said, eyeing his suit.

The Baron looked down at his clothes in the moonlight that touched him. His suit had been off-white, now it was ever-so-slightly grey, from him washing himself fully dressed in the rivers he found, his hat was still perfect, and there was only a light coating of dust upon his shoes.

"There's something wrong with my clothes?" he asked, perplexed. "But this is how I always dress."

"I'm sure they're fine for the city, but out back…" the cat tried to find the right words. "That hat won't keep flies or sun away, your shoes will probably give out or give you blisters, and the whole suit is just going to be filthy from sweat and dust in an hour, almost guaranteed."

The Baron smiled. "I don't sweat, I'm made of wood, I've had the shoes for centuries, they haven't made my feet complain yet, as for my hat," he could see what she meant. It was a town hat, meant for looking respectable and proper. The doll sighed, defeated. "I don't have anything else though," he said softly.

"That's alright, there are enough scraps around this ship for us to make you the right kind of kit." The tabby yawned; it was getting early. The moon was starting to go down, and the sun would be rising in an hour or so. "For now though, I suggest a retreat to bed, the crew will be up soon, and these kids don't go in big for buying trinkets."

She led him below decks to where she had kept her litter of kittens hidden the year before. The crew had only found them because they had started mewling for her when the humans were trying to get to sleep.

"I'll sort out getting stuff to make you some new clothes when we're a couple of days into the trip, there won't be any good scraps before then that they'll let me have, and don't worry if you don't see me before then. If any of the crew see me coming down here again, they'll start poking about for kittens."

"I don't know how to thank you," the Baron said, unrolling his small bed from his swag. "I don't even know your name."

"It's Tilly, and you can thank me by staying put until we make port," she said, slipping back around the small hatch and pushing it shut. With the figurine safe, hidden, and – most importantly – not about to go anywhere, Tilly decided it was time to go and pay a visit to her dear cousin. How dare he not invite her to the wedding! They had to be married by now, accounting for how long ago the Baron said he had been to the Cat Kingdom. The sun was about to rise though, and if the crew didn't see her somewhere on deck while they were making ready to sail, they worried about where she was. So she sat for a while beside the helm, surveying the crew at work like a queen observes her subjects.

Once the ship was out of the harbour and on the nearly open sea, she hopped down and headed below decks. She kept going down until she reached the bulkhead, where she stopped to check that none of the crew were hanging about. Satisfied that she would be unobserved, Tilly crept between boxes until she reached a place that only she could get to.

There, she stood up on her hind legs and, using just one claw, scratched a line in one of the chests (it would do no one any good if she weakened the boards of the ship). The line glowed and opened upon a portal to the Cat Kingdom.


	3. Chapter 3

In the Cat Kingdom, most cats went about on their hind legs, unless they were lowborn and in a hurry. Tilly thought that this was silly, so when she walked into her cousin's throne room, the guards tried to stop her, thinking that she was some presumptuous commoner.

She slipped rather carelessly between them; that is, her attitude was careless as she did it. The kick she planted in one guard's kidneys as she did so was more like an afterthought than maliciousness or anger at their stupidity. After all, she hadn't been announced, she didn't keep an entourage, and she didn't look like a royal cousin.

"Hello Lune," she said, approaching her cousin, still using all her paws for perambulation.

"Tilly, this _is_ an unexpected surprise, and you're just in time, I'm getting married tomorrow, you are staying, aren't you?" Lune said, sitting up in his seat with more enthusiasm than he had a moment ago. "I'd have sent you an invitation, but you're so hard to find," he added as he dismissed his attendants.

"I'm afraid I'm not staying, though I wish both you and Yuki happiness," she said, standing up to embrace her cousin, a sly smile on her face as she waited for his brain to register her words.

"Thank you, hang on! I hadn't told you her name, how could you know? You don't have a spy in my palace do you?" he asked jokingly. The cousins were on good terms, but they had played many pranks on each other and their friends growing up. Tilly was the only one who had never completely grown out of it.

"The Baron showed up on my ship," Tilly said seriously. "Told me the whole thing," she continued, seeing the shock on Lune's face. The tabby watched as her cousin's expression became introspective and worried. He always looked worried when he was thinking, even if the thoughts were nice ones.

"Why is he _on_ your ship, if _you're_ there?" Lune asked at last.

Tilly had waited patiently for her cousin to come to the only question he couldn't think up his own satisfactory answer to, and just nodded when he picked that one.

"Lune?" a sweet voice asked from the curtain to the side of the throne. Both cats already in the room turned to see a cat with perfect white fur and impossibly blue eyes, she was also wearing a ribbon around her neck, the bow to the back.

"You must be Yuki," Tilly said, leaving her cousin where he was, cutting off anything foolish and male that he might have said. "I'm Lune's cousin Tilly," she said flicking her ears in just the same way that Lune did when something tickled them.

"Oh, will you be staying for the wedding?" Yuki asked relieved that the cat wasn't a stranger. She had worked in the palace for a long time, and recognised the grey cat as trouble – ship cats almost always are, and there is something about this instinct for trouble that can be seen in the way they carry themselves.

"No, she just came to tell me something, she has to get back to her ship," Lune smiled, a chuckle coming to his voice as he said, "Tilly doesn't feel well without a ship beneath her paws for more than a few hours." He had found that hilarious the first time Tilly had claimed Land-Sickness, particularly since most cats didn't like water.

"You're a ship cat? That must be interesting, seeing all sorts of strange things from different countries," said Yuki, thinking for a moment that it might be nice to travel.

"Yes, but the strangest thing I have yet to see actually climbed aboard my ship the other night –" Tilly said, flattered that her soon-to-be in-law was fascinated with her work; most cats just cringed at the idea of being surrounded by water.

"The Baron," Lune said. "You haven't answered me yet Tilly, _why_ is he on your ship?" Lune asked again, taking a couple of steps towards them as the girls slowly walked back to him.

"Something to do with a broken heart and a girl called Haru," Tilly said lightly. She could have been more specific, her tone gave away that she was being tiresome on purpose, but she had said enough that she wasn't compelled to continue unless they hungered for details.

Yuki gasped, paws covering her mouth, while Lune's jaw dropped open. Tilly had expected to get a reaction, but not one like _that_.

"He's decided to take up the fine Australian tradition of swagging, going walkabout permanently. He's on my ship now, once he's off and past the city… there's a lot of Australia for a fella his size to loose himself in," the ship cat said, filling the silence with more information, wanting to know why the Baron's actions upset them so much.

"Lune, we have to send someone for Haru right now," Yuki said, her blue eyes even larger than they had been.

"I'll get a message to Muta, he can tell her. Tilly, thank you so much, how long will it be before your ship reaches home?" Lune asked, utterly efficient under pressure – Yuki's worry as well as his own distress.

"Couple of weeks, we're making one or two stops along the way, supplies and a chance for a real bath, and another week for quarantine before we get back to our gumtrees." It was a long-standing joke, that anyone who lived in Australia made their homes in gumtrees – it was a fallacy of course, only certain bush animals and the birds did that.

"We have a time limit… We can do this," Lune said, thinking.

"Well, if you will excuse me, I have a ship to supervise. Oh, and Lune?" she called, turning at the curtained door. Both Lune and Yuki looked over to her from their whispered conversation about what they had to do. "If I find out you start acting like Uncle, I'll skin you," Tilly said a smile curling her furred lips, making even her long whiskers look a little dangerous.

With that, she was gone, returned by her own magic to her ship.


	4. Chapter 4

"We're in port," she said, yawning impressively as she sat with the Baron. She hadn't told him of her visit to the Cat Kingdom, she had no intention of telling him about her connections there, and she certainly wasn't about to tell him that Lune and Yuki were going to tell his friends where he was.

He had told her about not wanting them to find her; she rather thought that selfish and stupid, but kept her opinions to herself.

"Australia?"

Tilly shook her head prettily, not because she wanted to be pretty for the Baron, but because she had practiced it so much she had forgotten how to shake her head any other way. "No, we're stopped at Timor for hygiene purposes before the last leg of the trip to Sydney. That's much better," she added, opening an eye to look at the Baron in his new clothes.

He now had a soft leather slouch hat in place of his fine silk topper, and instead of tails, he wore a long coat much like the drysabone. The drysabone was popular throughout Australia because it wasn't hot and kept the wearer dry as a bone (hence the name), when the unexpected rains came that would soak an unprepared person to their very marrow. The shoes had stayed, since they were, after all, still in perfect condition after centuries, and the cane had been kept as well, simply because he could not bare to part with it. Replacing a cane was one thing; getting rid of it altogether was something he simply wouldn't do. His old clothes were rolled up in his swag too, he may now have a more appropriate wardrobe, but his old clothes were still a part of who he was. He couldn't let them go either.

"Now you just have to get through a week in quarantine and you're free to go. I warn you, they do a lot of weird things in the name of ecological health in Australia," Tilly said, closing the bright eye again.

That was an interesting thing about Tilly's eyes, when she was looking at you, it wasn't the colour you noticed, it was how bright they were, almost as if she kept the moonshine in them all through the day as well as the night. Her eyes were no particular colour, not like Yuki's ver blue eyes, Lune's mismatched red and blue eyes, Haru's big brown orbs, or the Baron's own emerald green. Tilly's eyes were sort of every colour and none of them, shining mischievously over long whiskers and a curling smile.

Two days after leaving Timor, they arrived in Sydney.

"Tilly, are you ready for quarantine lovely?" The captain who ran the ship was always the one who went to find Tilly for her isolation period.

Tilly mewed deliberately from the place where she had hidden the Baron. They had decided to do it this way, it would save complications. When the captain found her, she was lying down comfortably with her tail wrapped around the Baron's wooden form as he stood tall and straight in his new clothes with his swag hanging down his back.

"So you made a friend?" asked the captain, surprised, but relieved that it wasn't another litter of kittens. "He's your responsibility once you're both out of quarantine you know," the red-bearded man informed her as he picked up his favourite cat in one arm and the doll in his other hand.

Tilly just mewed and smiled a knowing smile that the man didn't see, rubbing her cheek against his chest as he scratched her gently behind the ears, just the way that she liked it. She had this crew well trained, she would be sorry to see some of them leave, but leave they did, and she and her captain got new people who hungered for the sea and the experience of working on the tall ship.

When the quarantine period was over, the officers returned Tilly and the Baron to the captain and the ship. The captain felt much the same way about dry land as Tilly, but he also had a family there. Tilly stayed on the ship for the most part, going ashore when she felt like it, and returning to the ship for the fish bits that the fish and chip shops left in her bowl. She thought these were perfectly tasty, but people, it seemed, didn't care for fish heads.

The Baron had decided to stay aboard ship too, faced with the unfamiliar expanse of Sydney. He thought a guide might be nice, just to get him through to the other side, but no cat had that kind of territory. To add to the complications, the roads were never empty in Sydney like they had been in the smaller cities he had passed through before.

"I promise, once you're past the mountain range, you've got the whole outback to see nothingness in, but you've got to get through the city before you consider reaching the mountains," Tilly said, lapping water from her dish contentedly.

"I can't even _see_ the mountains from here," the Baron said, sitting where Tilly had the day they had begun the voyage home to Australia, beside the helm.

"So ask somebody, not me though, I haven't seen the mountains since I was a kitten, much too long ago for me to be any help, particularly since I get a bit woozy if I'm out of sight of water for very long. Only reason I survive quarantine is coz they give me a spot with a view of the river," the grey feline explained, stretching and yawning before leaping up onto the railing at the side of the ship. Looking over the side at the people on the docks, she smiled to herself.

"Who would I ask?" the Baron said, jumping down from beside the helm. He crossed the deck to stand almost directly below Tilly, looking up at her, waiting for an answer. "Who could I ask?" he said, more quietly, to himself.

She didn't answer him though, her head moving slowly as she kept something on the dockside in sight.


	5. Chapter 5

"You could ask me."

Baron's heart stopped in his chest and he turned to wood. Humans didn't see him alive, only Haru knew; only Miss Haru _would_ know.

"Please don't do that Baron," the voice said. A female voice. A familiar voice, now that he thought about it.

"Miss Haru," he said, coming to life again, he hadn't even turned to look at her, but he knew. "Miss Haru what are you doing here?" he asked, turning to see her. He felt empty all over again, like there was nothing for him to hold onto that was real, even she couldn't really be there, could she? He was seeing things from having been at sea too long.

Her hair was shorter; she was wearing jeans and a faded blue shirt that was almost a size too large; there was a hat on her head – a larger version of the one on his, and she was on the ship, walking towards him.

"Finding you," she said simply, softly. The girl with the big brown eyes sat down on the stair next to the figurine. Tilly took the opportunity to get a petting by climbing into Haru's lap. "Why are you here, Baron?" Haru asked as she stroked Tilly absently. She knew who this cat was – Muta had told her about the visit Lune had received from his cousin when the Baron had been missing for the better (or worse) part of a month.

"I –" he couldn't find the words for it, he had never known, from the day he left the Bureau behind, where or why he was going.

"He thought that if he was going to feel lonely then he ought to be alone," Tilly said. "To the left a bit please Miss Haru," she added, purring softly. "I really am glad you made it."

The Baron was struck dumb. He did not shock easily, but he had thought for sure that an Australian cat would not know Miss Haru well enough to talk to her like that – and made it for what?

"So am I Tilly, but I'm a bit unsure if what you did counts as Lune's family thanking me, of if I'm going to have to give you a thank you," Haru said, obligingly shifting her hand as directed.

"This is Australia, Hun. You say thank you and if you feel obliged, you do something nice in return. I really only told cousin Lune what was going on because I wanted to be angry at him for not inviting me to the wedding, but he was so happy to see me, and begged me twice to stay for the wedding the next day, well," Tilly said.

The females had forgotten the Baron a little in their conversation, but it made some things very much clearer to him as he listened. When they both turned to look at him, the figurine felt like he was suddenly caught off guard, he had been almost eavesdropping after all.

"Take off your hat and kneel, Baron, receive the blessing of a princess of the Cat Kingdom," Tilly said, hopping out of Haru's lap and stalking over to the wooden doll.

He did as he was told. _Lune's cousin,_ he thought. He never would have guessed it, there were cats all over the world that same grey, and they certainly weren't all part of the royal family. He could feel her rough, dry tongue on his forehead, and a tingling sensation was left behind. The tingling feeling spread to the rest of his body and seemed to fill him, itching just beneath the skin.

"I don't want any thanks, alright? I did that because I wanted to, you might not like it all the time either, so there's no point in thanking me. Now, your passport is in the swag, so if you want to travel some more, that won't be a problem. You have a house in Hornsby where all the other human-type details are: birth certificate, high school reports and so on… was that everything?" Tilly was talking to Haru, but that last question was to herself, as she considered.


	6. Chapter 6

"Oh, that's right, there _was_ one more thing," Tilly said, turning from Haru to the Baron again.

"No one has been called _Humbert_ for donkey's years, and Baron's are few and far between, besides, people would wonder where this titled person came from all of a sudden. So I've changed your name," she said, looking up at the figure she had changed so dramatically in such a short time.

"You what?" the Baron asked, not angry, but perplexed. He felt different all over, and he had never had to look down at Tilly before.

"Andrew Clancy Harrison, that's your name now, of course, we who know you might still call you Baron from time to time," Tilly winked at the confused male and sauntered off down the deck.

For a moment, Baron just watched the hatch the grey had disappeared into, still unsure what had happened, and he turned to Haru for help, as she had once turned to him. He was surprised that he had to look down into her lovely face, since he was so much shorter than she was, unless they were in the Cat Kingdom.

"Wow," Haru said. There was a hazy look in her amber eyes as she looked up at her hero. Getting up from the step she was sitting on, Haru took a couple of steps towards him, then another.

"You two want to join the crew? We need some more hands before we can set off again," the captain said, coming out of the hatch Tilly had just moments before gone down. The ship was open for anyone to come aboard and look around, that was how they got fresh crewmembers when they docked. There were other people trying to climb the rigging.

"Oh, no. We were just admiring how beautiful everything is, and making friends with the cat," Haru said, smiling happily at the captain. She waved as he nodded and headed for the people who were getting caught in the shrouds. She hadn't realised that she had taken one of the Baron's hands in her own when she turned to answer the captain of the ship.

He looked down at her hand in his. He wasn't wearing his gloves any more, just her bare hand in his, and he liked the feel of her palm against his fingers. His _human_ fingers. Surreptitiously checking his behind, he found himself to be lacking in the tail department too.

Haru turned back to him, the hazy look returning to her golden brown eyes as she studied his features. Unsure for the first time since she had been to the Cat Kingdom, she raised her free hand to touch his face.

As her fingertips moved against his features, he realised that he no longer had fur, whiskers or cat ears. He also felt something inside him twist strangely as his mind dwelt upon her touch.

"You're hair colour hasn't changed, and your eyes are the same, but is Baron Humbert von Gikkingken really Andrew Clancy Harrison now?" she asked, almost knitting her fingers into the hair that hung just below his hat.


	7. Chapter 7

He wasn't who he had been. He was no longer Baron Humbert von Gikkingken; a feline gentleman made of wood. Tilly had taken care of that to the finest, most inconsequential detail – except that she had not given him a family he would not know, for which he was grateful.

"… _but is Baron Humbert von Gikkingken really Andrew Clancy Harrison now?"_

" _I don't know," he had said, unable to take his eyes from her face. She was the only part of the world that was certain to him just then._

 _They both heard something clink in Haru's pocket, and she drew it out. It was a key on a paper tag that said_ "Forgot the key, 43 Stephen St."

" _How about we go and find out?" Haru had suggested, looking from him to the key and back again._

So they had climbed into a taxi, they had paid the man and climbed out again. For a moment they just stood in front of the house and stared. It looked a lot like the Bureau, only it wasn't yellow and green and didn't have a double-door. Instead of a small flowerbed, there was a plum tree. Haru took the key out of her jeans' pocket again and put it in the lock.

It was a plain house on the inside, the lining boards were only varnished rather than painted, the carpet was deep brown and soft, the furniture was elegant in its simplicity. There was a shelf packed with literature affixed to a wall each of the lounge room, dining room and kitchen.

"You have great taste Mister Harrison," Haru teased, squeezing his hand gently as they wandered, staring, through the house.

After passing through the rooms that guests usually saw they found his bedroom, which he quickly shut the door upon, feeling it improper to show a lady into his bedroom. There was warmth on his cheeks that he couldn't account for, but Haru smiled at him, squeezed his hand and they moved on. The bathroom was white and uninteresting, and the privy was opposite, both had doors that could be locked.

Haru opened the last door, and gazed in wonder at the office-like room. There was a large writing desk in the middle of the room, and shelves lined one of the walls completely. Against the opposing wall, there were a couple of filing cabinets, and behind the desk was a large red curtain. Opening the curtain, they saw a garden beyond a wall of glass set in white-painted wooden frames.

Finding a door through the wall of windows, they headed outside once more. They didn't have far to go before they reached the end of the garden, but there were a couple of fruit trees and some rose bushes.

"I think I like this Andrew," Haru said, smiling as she looked up at Baron from one of his roses, and her eyes grew wide as she looked past him, staring at something back in his office that she hadn't noticed when they went in.


	8. Chapter 8

"Haru? What is it?" he asked, turning to look over his shoulder.

It was small. It was no wonder that she hadn't noticed it on the way in, but there it was, on the wall near the door, exactly opposite the chair at the desk. Now that she had seen it, however, she didn't know if she could bear to go any closer and actually look at it. Likewise, she couldn't take her eyes from it, desperately wanting to know exactly what it was.

She walked passed him, towards the door, and it.

He looked from her to the house and back again, unable to see what could possibly have made her react this way. Then, as Haru took a swaying step, he was able to see past her into his study, and he blanched.

He hurried to catch up with her. He did not want her to find out what it was without him.

It was a frame, hanging on the wall. There was a picture in it, but the frames that held the windows in place obscured the picture from where they were in the garden.

It was a simple frame, just plastic gold as can be bought in any photo shop, and it wasn't very large, only big enough to hold some of a standard photo. It was also heart-shaped.

He was just one pace behind Haru when she stopped. He had been more concerned with Haru than what was in the picture, so he looked first to her, offering his handkerchief when her eyes began to brim with tears. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding her close to him, he then turned to the picture frame.

It was a picture of them, back in the Cat Kingdom. He was protecting Haru, and she was holding onto him. She was wearing that luxurious yellow dress, and he was wearing a blue cape. They were smiling, and looking slightly down at something. He remembered; Muta had just fallen onto three guards who were trying to capture him and recover Haru for the King.

They were clinging to each other in the picture much the same way as they were holding one another now, with his arm around her and hers against him. He had wanted so much to kiss her then; he still wanted to kiss her now.

"I fell in love with you, you know Baron. After you left, I thought about you all the time, I couldn't get you out of my head," Haru said, wiping the tears away with his handkerchief. "But I made myself keep you out of my life. I made myself not go to the Bureau when I was having trouble getting this guy in school to leave me alone. I made myself not run to the Bureau laughing just to tell you I had graduated early, and then Muta and Toto showed up one morning and told me you had disappeared. They were too depressed to even try blaming each other for it. I put up posters around town with your picture on, asking for any information about a missing figurine. I never heard anything. A couple of months later Muta came back and said you had been found by Lune's cousin, on a ship headed for Australia. I jumped on the first plane here and waited for the ship to come in, and then there you were. I didn't want you to leave my life, not really." Haru said softly, just going on, not really caring if he was listening, just so long as it was said. He had to know how much she loved him.

"I didn't want to leave your life," admitted the Baron, looking down at her soft brown hair.

"Now you don't have to," she said, turning her face up to his. Her lovely brown eyes were still glassy from the tears, her lip quivered and her cheeks were burning. "Andrew."

"No, I don't," he agreed, his voice husky as he closed the few centimetres between them to softly kiss her. Here he was with the woman he loved more than anything and anyone else in the world, and he could keep her, she could keep him, they could stay together. He took his lips away from hers and took a shaky breath, holding her hands in his.

"Marry me?" he asked, not daring to open his eyes.

Haru didn't answer, she had been first paralysed by the kiss, and then freed by the words, but she was still mute. She pressed her lips back against his until she felt like she had a voice again. "Today," she said.

Her silence had worried him, and the kiss had felt frighteningly like a goodbye, but that one little word from her, and he scooped her up in his arms and ran out the front door. He kept running until he found a taxi.

"The nearest registry office," he told the man, feverish with delight.

"Congratulations," said the man, smiling as they climbed in the back of his cab.


End file.
